There are many applications in academic, industrial, and medical fields that benefit from devices and methods that are capable of accurately and controllably delivering fluids, such as liquids and gases, that have a beneficial effect when administered in known and controlled quantities. Such devices and methods can be particularly useful in the medical field where treatments for many patients include the administration of a known amount of a substance at predetermined intervals.
One category of devices for delivering such fluids is that of insulin-injecting pumps that have been developed for the administration of insulin for those suffering from both type I and type II diabetes. Some insulin injecting pumps configured as portable infusion devices can provide continuous subcutaneous insulin injection and/or infusion therapy for the treatment of diabetes. Such therapy may include the regular and/or continuous injection or infusion of insulin into the skin of a person suffering from diabetes and offer an alternative to multiple daily injections of insulin by an insulin syringe or an insulin pen. Such pumps can be ambulatory/portable infusion pumps that are worn by the user and may use replaceable cartridges. Examples of such pumps and various features that can be associated with such pumps include those disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/557,163, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/714,299, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/538,018, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/838,617, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/827,707 and U.S. Pat. No. 8,287,495, each of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
With the proliferation of handheld electronic devices, such as mobile phones (e.g., smartphones), there is a desire to be able to remotely utilize such devices to optimize usage of infusion pump devices.
Infusion pumps are often discretely located on or around a patient, such as beneath clothing or in a carrying pouch. Some infusion pumps are therefore adapted to be programmed and/or controlled with remote devices that enable programming and/or control without directly interacting with a user interface of the pump. These remote controllers therefore enable a pump to be programmed and/or operated more privately and comfortably. Accordingly, one potential use of such handheld consumer electronic devices, such as smartphones, tablets and the like, is to utilize such devices as a controller for remotely programming and/or operating an infusion pump. However, without viewing the pump there would be no way to determine whether the pump is, e.g., receiving commands from the smartphone, has been properly programmed by the smartphone, etc., and therefore the risk of improper medicament delivery could exist.
Many infusion pumps design to delivery insulin to a patient are capable of integrating with diabetes management software run on a computer. Such software typically provides a convenient and visual way to display data from the pump and associated devices, such as blood glucose meters. Use of such systems enables patients and caregivers to easily track and analyze treatment data and trends to optimize diabetes therapy. However, in many cases, data must be transferred from the pump directly to a computer running the management software by a wired connection or with a portable memory device such as a flash drive. Inconveniences posed by such requirements can lead to data not being timely or properly or ever transferred to the management software, which in turn leads to under or improper utilization of the software or in some cases the software not being used at all.
In addition, the typical age of diagnosis of type I diabetes is 14 years old or younger. Thus, a significant percentage of the people that utilize insulin pumps are children who may spend their time in, e.g., daycare facilities, school, or other locations away from parents or primary caregivers. Generally, children below a certain age are not given the responsibility of monitoring their blood sugar levels and/or dosing insulin themselves, and therefore when those children are at school they must obtain the assistance of an adult such as the school nurse, teacher, etc., each time insulin needs to be dosed. This frequently presents an inconvenience to both the child as well as to school officials, and even the child's peers, not to mention embarrassment for the child patient and disruption of the child's educational experience. It would therefore be desirable for children to safely play a larger role in the management of their disease by providing a way for them to initiate dosing of insulin and/or other medicaments themselves, while still providing some level of oversight from an adult, without the child having to personally visit a school nurse or other authorized caregiver.